IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde roiled currency and bond markets on Thursday as reports came out of her opening press conference saying that she had denied any payment delay to Greece on IMF loans falling due next month.

Unless Greece concludes its negotiations for a further round of bailout money from the European Union, however, it is not likely to have the money to repay the IMF.

The reports were not inaccurate because reporters got the message Lagarde was trying to convey. But the actual remarks of the former French finance minister, a veteran politician, also bear other interpretations and conceivably leave the door open for her to consider a delay.

"Payment delays have not been granted by the (Executive) Board of the IMF in the last 30 years," is the way Lagarde responded to a question about a delay for Greece, according to the IMF's transcript of the press conference.

Delays granted to a couple of developing countries were not "very productive," she said. She added, "We have never had an advanced economy asking for payment delays."

However, the IMF chief said, "the IMF is rule-based. All options are available to all countries," including, apparently, the option to delay payments.

She quickly qualified that blanket statement by saying, "It is clearly not a course of action that would actually fit or be recommendable in the current situation."

Still, not an outright rejection of the proposition, prompting a follow-up question from the press. Even though there's no precedent for an advanced country to seek a payment delay, the questioner asked, "are you able to say definitively you would not grant it?"

Lagarde finessed answering this question because the journalist also asked if she was worried that the Greek crisis was undermining the IMF's reputation as one of the safest places to lend money.

"I can assure you that management will do everything it can to make sure that lending to the fund is actually the safest lending route that anyone can adopt," Lagarde answered.

Addressed, perhaps, but not answered. After all, if Greece were to default on the some $1 billion of payments due to the IMF next month, that would do more harm to the agency's sterling reputation than a delay of payments.

But Lagarde was quite happy to let the impression stand that Greece could expect no relief from the IMF, playing her part in bringing pressure to bear on the Greek government to buckle under to the bailout terms agreed to by the previous government.

The dialogue of the deaf between Greece and its creditors continued later in the day as German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, the driving force behind the hard line the EU is taking with Greece, and Greek Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis, the colorful academic who insists that the crushing austerity policies imposed by the EU must be eased, made back-to-back appearances at the Brookings Institution.

Each insisted that he wanted Greece to stay in the euro, but each also ruled out any compromise on the core issues separating them.

Markets reacted in a way — the Dow on Friday was down 250-some points partly on concern over Greece — that showed investors understand it means trouble if both of them are serious.

Schäuble, along with EU and IMF authorities, may be betting that the far-left government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will cave or will collapse, paving the way for the more pliable mainstream parties to return to power.

It is a dangerous form of brinksmanship, because the resolve in Athens may be stronger than they think, forcing the creditors to blink and compromise after all, with a tremendous loss of face, or forcing a default with consequences that are impossible to predict.

Markets are right to be jittery. The IMF meetings are supposed to bring greater communication and consensus on global financial risk, but so far at this meeting they have only succeeded in ratcheting up posturing over Greece to reckless levels.

Business columnist Darrell Delamaide has reported on business and economics from New York, Paris, Berlin and Washington for Dow Jones news service, Barron's, Institutional Investor and Bloomberg News service, among others.